


Of Rainy Days and Dirty Boots

by orphan_account



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: F/M, cute and fluffy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-09-30
Updated: 2013-09-30
Packaged: 2017-12-28 00:34:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,900
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/985517
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Her uniform was wet, her hair was dirty, and it would take her a whole morning to get rid of the dried mud that covered her boots. She was exhausted after a hard day's work, but there is no bad a warm fireplace and a moody comrade-slash-boyfriend can't fix.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Of Rainy Days and Dirty Boots

**Author's Note:**

> Hey guys! I posted this at one of my blogs (attack-on-chlexcer.tumblr.com), but I figured, why don't post it here?  
> It was written after erensboobs prompt in tumblr: “levi and hanji cuddling after a really stressful day and levi is just “wowowowowo wo owow hanji youre so precious” andd like kisses her a lot and its cute”, except I took a slightly different approach on the 'stressful' part and turned into just a very tiring day.  
> So here it is!  
> Enjoy and thanks!

It was late and it was very cold outside. It had rained heavily in the morning and all through the afternoon, until the sun made a timid apparition on the horizon, just above Wall Rose, turning the clouds to different shades of pink and red and falling like liquid gold over the land that was still covered in raindrops.

It was a shame that nobody in the Survey Corps had enough peace of mind, time, or patience to stop their activities and simply observe. 

Others, like Hanji Zoe, weren’t much too interested in things as vague and irrelevant to their studies as the colours of the sky. More than trying to find beauty in places far away, she had decided to perceive her predators as beautiful in their own twisted way. It was no easy task, certainly, and it brought her a lot of trouble, but soon she had managed to turn all the fear and repulse she felt for the titans into sheer passion and interest. 

She had spent all day in the gardens of the Survey Corps’ headquarters, in the place where her dear pet titans, Sonny and Bean, were being kept. Since she had never seen the titans’ reaction to the exposure to heavy rain, she knew from the moment she jumped out of bed that she wouldn’t be interrupting her observation and experimentation at least until the rain stopped falling.

And indeed, she spent all day developing new hypothesis, verifying them, and then writing down the results: does titan skin become wrinkly after being exposed to so much water, or does it repel it? Why don’t they need to drink water? What happens to them if they do swallow water? Do their eyes get irritated when a few drops of water fall in them? Why do their bodies emanate steam when the drops of water touch them? What is the composition of said steam?

Needless to say, this research of hers hadn’t been a walk in the park. More than once, Sawney or Bean had gone off their way to try and give Hanji a bite or two, which had her constantly jumping back and forth between puddles of mud. If it hadn’t been for Moblit’s insistence, she probably wouldn’t have paused to eat (which she did, but only once, and so fast that the mud in her boots hadn’t have time to dry) until the last few drops of water fell and the sun began to break in from the west, just before sunset.

However, jumping around between puddles of mud and titan steam had certainly taken its toll on her. It was only a few hours after sunset, when she was already in her quarters, that she realised just how exhausted she was. Her muscles pained her when she crouched to build a decent fire in the fireplace, and she swore her arms could fall out when she wrestled with her mud-covered boots to take them off. 

As she was making herself comfortable on an old couch in front of the fireplace, her uniform still on even though it was still dirty and humid, her hair all sticky due to the dirt and the rain, and her glasses pulled over her head, holding a few strands in place, ready to fall asleep there and then, the sound of the bedroom’s door being open interrupted her intentions of warming her body up with the fireplace and procrastinating a very urgent bath.

Her lips, however, curved into a smile. “Hi, Levi…! I was beginning to think you weren’t going to come after all…” 

The Lance Corporal dragged his eyes over her and the dirty boots thrown carelessly a few steps away from him, and he couldn’t help but frown. “You’re filthy.” He did, however, step into the room, that was gradually getting warmer, carefully closing the door behind him. “More so than usual.”

Hanji just shrugged, still smiling, and she let her eyes close again. “Oh, yeah, just a little… You know how it gets muddy when it rains… --Oh, right! I need to tell you about all the things I learnt with my experiments…! I have never been able to observe a titan’s behaviour under different weather conditions, so today was such an important day for my research…!”

“No, I don’t think I need to know stuff like that. From what you look like I can make myself an idea of how it went.” Levi made his way to the back of the couch and neatly put his jacket over it. “Also, you need to get up and take a shower, shitty glasses. You’ll end up falling asleep when what you really need is to fall in the tub before the mud dries and you can’t get up again.”  
Hanji clicked his tongue and waved him off. “I can do that tomorrow, Levi, honestly…” She snickered under her breath as she looked up at him, leaning her head against the back of the couch. “It never ceases to amuse me, though... Humanity’s strongest cannot handle a little bit of dirt!”

“Because it isn’t a little bit of dirt.” He glared down at her. “Hanji. If you want me to sleep here, get up from that couch and go fill the tub.”

Hanji sighed and rolled her eyes, not in annoyance, but in agreement. “I know I have to go, I know it, okay? I’m just… I’m just very tired, that is all. It’s extremely exhausting to try and do something for the sake of humanity when even your closest friends try to shoot you down… Even you! I don’t care about what anybody else thinks about me, that is no secret, but sometimes I can’t help but wonder if it is really all that helpful in the end. Not to mention all the pain I put poor Bean and Sawney through…!”

Levi’s hand on her hair stopped her from speaking further, and she opened her eyes again to see him pick up her glasses, carefully so he didn’t pull on her hair, fold them, and then leave them over the little wooden table next to the couch. “What an idiot.” He then put his –impeccable, yet very rough— hand over her cheek, his eyes fixated on her face below him (for once). 

“You know very well that what you do every day is of extreme importance. Just because you act like a damn child when it comes to titans, and it annoys everybody else, doesn’t make your research any less important.”  
A tired smile grew on Hanji’s face again, and she spoke up after a few seconds of silence. “That’s what I think, too… But I’m sure that if you, or Erwin, or Mike, or anybody didn’t show occasional interest about my research, I wouldn’t be able to spend a whole day jumping around in the rain…”

“Which you shouldn’t. Not only will you end up filthy like a fucking dog, or something, but you will also catch a cold, and what good will you do for humanity if you can’t get up from your bed?” Hanji was pleasantly surprised when she saw Levi leaning forward to press his lips against her forehead.

“Aw, Levi! Are you actually worried I might get sick?” She grinned and chuckled softly at that, as she reached for his hair with one of her hands, gently threading her fingers through it. “Don’t worry, that isn’t going to happen. I probably gathered so much dirt that I’m immune to colds and sicknesses, who knows?” She wasn’t surprised when she felt his fingers pinch her cheek painfully and saw him pulling back from her.

“Enough, I’m out of here.”

“No, wait, wait!” She managed to grab him by the wrist before he pulled back completely, between chuckles. “I’ll go wash up, alright? I was just playing around a little bit with you! If you don’t stop getting mad at every little thing, you’re gonna get all wrinkly before even becoming thirty five!” Hanji grinned up at Levi, and without letting go of his hand, she sat up on her knees and turned around to be facing him. “But that’s okay, you know? I’d still love you even if you had wrinkles all over your face…” 

Levi looked back at her, unable to begin to understand how easily she could go from miserably exhausted to animated and warm, yet still tired. She pulled on him to bring him closer, and they intertwined the fingers of their hands, which caused her to smile even more. “You’ve always been so shameless, haven’t you?” Her smile was the kind of smile he didn’t know if he wanted to simply look at it or kiss it until it disappeared. 

He decided on doing the latter, and his lips gently pressed themselves against hers even if he could almost taste the dirt on them. She hummed softly against his lips, and chuckled softly as she pulled away, speaking with her lips still brushing against his. “You like it, don’t you?”

They kissed again, sweetly, their hands clasped tightly, and with Levi leaning over slightly so he could cover the distance between their lips. “It’s beautiful, in its own way… Like you.”

Hanji couldn’t help but laugh loudly at that, pulling back from Levi’s face and covering her mouth with her free hand. “Shit, Levi… I mean, I know you’re willing to do anything so I go take that bath, but that’s a little too much, you know?”

Levi looked annoyed. “Hey, Shitty glasses, I’m fucking trying my best to be honest with you! I do think you’re beautiful, even if you’re abnormal as shit.” He pulled on her hand to bring her close again, while she kept on laughing softly. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, it just took me off guard. You’ve really never said such things to me before, and I thought you were just playing around as well. My bad, I’m sorry, Levi.” She was still chuckling when she felt his lips press themselves against her forehead again.

“I love you, Levi. Even if you’re also weird. You’re beautiful as well, you know? You probably don’t know, because nobody ever dares to tell you anything like that. I think it’s because you have this scary posture and face, like you could kill anybody the second they assumed you are more than just a soldier—”

“—I love you too, Hanji. But, shit, do you ever shut up?” He finally let go of her hand and she chuckled more as she got on her feet, stretching her arms and aligning her spine while doing so. “There you go again… So grumpy.” She walked over to the door that lead to the little washing room within her quarters.

Before disappearing behind the door, she turned over her heels, and guessing Levi’s dark figure against the warm light of the fireplace, he pointed at him. “And don’t you dare fall asleep before I’m done here, alright? I really want you to hear the conclusions I drew from today’s experiments, at least…!”

Levi sighed, exasperated, and rolled his eyes, even though he was amused at the fact that Hanji’s finger was pointing slightly in the wrong direction. “I will wait. Just hurry up. You’re not the only one that’s tired.” 

Hanji grinned and just before closing the door he spoke to him one last time: “I know, I’m sorry. Thank you!”

**Author's Note:**

> I have this headcanon where Levi and Hanji are in a relationship (--married--), but both of them being the busy people they are rarely have enough time to see each other. They always sleep together, though, and keep their cuteness to themselves.  
> That is, more or less, the sentimental context of this, by the way.  
> Anyway, thank you very much for reading!


End file.
